The Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Dominica has made a strong commitment to advance the process towards electoral modernization in Dominica. The following announcement has been made by PM Skerrit during the First meeting of the First Session of the 11th Parliament on Tuesday.
He added that, “I will say to the Parliament as well as to the people of Dominica that this a matter that I wish to put to rest once & for all in our nation. And I am wishing to come to the Parliament to seek parliamentary approval of the legislation by the month of April, so that the process of implementation can begin immediately thereafter.”
The leader of Dominica has consulted with Dennis Byron on 3 occasions from the time since the former President of the Caribbean Court of Justice has presented his report on electoral modernization in the month of December. Notably, Dennis Byron, in 2020, was appointed as the sole commissioner to review the electoral process of Dominica.
Skerrit made an announcement that he had engaged the services of a legal expert in drafting the legislation, which will be forming part of the submission on electoral reform & looked forward to the final report from Dennis Byron ahead of the convening of stakeholder consultations.
He mentioned that, “Making a consultation with any politician or any group of politicians is not the final point of consultation. The people of Dominica must be consulted on this very significant matter of their right to vote in Dominica if they so choose to register and to vote in the elections of Dominica. So I just want to clarify that we’ll continue to engage on this matter of electoral reform, with the highest standards of transparency.”
At the same time, he noted that, “I shall say this to those who don’t want it to happen, that you can jump high, jump low, there’ll be electoral modernization in Dominica. As there are some who say they want it, but do not want it just because they want to continue for giving the international community the impression that this government don’t want electoral modernization.
“And so I’m saying to all that I want it and I want it now!” the Prime Minister declared.
